Charlie Barr: part two of his life and times

We look at why Britain’s most successful AC skipper became the darling of the USA yacht clubs. Part two of two

Article, by Barry Pickthall, and PPL from CB302. Click here to read part one. Click here to subscribe.

For all Charlie Barr’s celebrated exploits as the most sought-after America’s Cup captain of his time, it was actually his older brother John who hit the headlines first as he was judged to be the better individual sailor.

Charlie, on the other hand, was the supreme starting helmsman, one of the best students of the racing rules and the better man manager, able to drill and captain his crew to tack, gybe, and set and recover spinnakers better than anyone.

In 1887, John Barr was named skipper of James Bell’s secretive Scottish challenger, Thistle. Designed by George L Watson, the shipwrights and other workers at D&W Henderson’s yard on the Clyde were sworn to secrecy about her shape and size. When she was launched, the whole yacht was swathed in a canvas modesty screen to stop prying eyes like those of the New York Sun newspaper reporting any detail back to members of the New York YC, holders of the America’s Cup. Their correspondent speculated that she was a centreboarder.

James Gordon Bennett Jr, the proprietor of the New York Herald and a keen Cup follower, took great delight in showing up this uninformed comment by interviewing Dixon Kemp, secretary of the Yacht Racing Association, who confirmed that had Thistle carried a centreboard, she would not have been allowed to compete in the Royal Thames YC’s Harwich race. Unlike the Americans, the British sailing hierarchy did not view centreboarders as seamanlike and discouraged their development.

This secrecy over Thistle’s design gathered pace when she arrived in New York. The World newspaper went to the trouble of hiring a diver one night to measure her underwater profile while John Barr and his crew slept. The subsequent drawing was wildly inaccurate; when it came to measuring her in dry dock, the challenger’s waterline was found to be almost 1½ft (46cm) longer than stated when the challenge had been lodged.

Charlie Barr at the wheel of Reliance

Unfortunately, Thistle’s performance did not match the hype nor the vast amounts of money bet on her to beat the Cup defender Volunteer, skippered by Hank Haff who would become Charlie Barr’s greatest adversary. Haff sank Thistle’s hopes with two straight victories by wide margins. Little more is heard of John Barr, but you can be certain that his younger brother learned a great deal from this one-sided rout.

Charlie Barr’s first clash with Hank Haff was during the Cup trials to select a defender against Lord Dunraven’s Valkyrie III in 1895. It was an acrimonious, protest-ridden introduction. Haff had command of Defender, a new 89ft (27.1m) Herreshoff cutter, while Barr had the helm of Vigilant, the successful 1893 defender. In their first skirmish, Barr had Vigilant hard on the wind, aiming to close out Defender, when Haff simply barged his way in, forcing Barr to bear away.

The committee deferred the protest, but when the two yachts met on the line two day’s later, Haff again forced Vigilant from her course.

This second violation of the rules complicated matters, for the New York YC had a rule that barred any yacht from racing under the club’s auspices again if it had lost two or more protests. There is little doubt that Barr would have known this, and his winner’s mentality would have pressed for both protests to be heard in an effort to eliminate the faster yacht from the trials. In the end, wiser council prevailed, and Mr E A Willard, the owner’s representative aboard Vigilant who had spent $50,000 having her upgraded, withdrew from the series. Barr was furious: “I have been made a fool of. Vigilant has had the better position, and it is unfair that we have to give way all the time. If these races had been for the Cup, then Valkyrie III would have held her course each time.”

Shamrock and Columbia (foreground) racing neck-and-neck at the start of the second race of the 1899 America’s Cup

Perhaps it was just as well, for the 1895 series between Defender and Lord Dunraven’s Valkyrie III turned into one of the most acidic events in the Cup’s history. By the time Sir Thomas Lipton came on the scene in 1899 with the first of his Shamrock challengers, Hank Haff had quite a reputation for bending and breaking the rules, while Barr was seen by American eyes at least, as the white knight. This is perhaps why he, rather than Haff, was given command of Columbia, Herreshoff’s latest creation.

It took time for Barr to bring his crew up to speed and improve their sail handling, but by August, Columbia had the measure of Defender in every race and her choice as the New York YC’s Cup defender became a formality to all but Haff Hank who, relegated to an opinionated bystander, concluded that Shamrock “…is the best boat that has ever crossed the Atlantic in quest of the America’s Cup”. His refusal to endorse Barr’s chances with Columbia could not have been wider from the mark: the American crew easily had the measure of Lipton’s challenger, winning the first two races by comfortable margins. And to show their appreciation, Columbia’s owners, which included the banker J P Morgan, awarded Barr $3,965.75 for the campaign – the equivalent of around $112,000 today.

Classic Boat is the magazine for the world’s most beautiful boats. Packed with stunning images, we have the inside stories of the great classic yachts and motorboats afloat today, as well as fascinating tales from yesteryear and the latest from the wooden boat building scene around the world.

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Classic Boat is the magazine for the world’s most beautiful boats. Packed with stunning images, we have the inside stories of the great classic yachts and motorboats afloat today, as well as fascinating tales from yesteryear and the latest from the wooden boat building scene around the world.